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Barbara Ehrenreich
Barbara Ehrenreich was born in Butte, Montana, in 1941. She was born into a family of miners and railroad workers. Ehrenreich is an award-winning author. Ehrenreich has writen books like "Nickel and Dimeed" and "Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy."http://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/barbara_ehrenreich.htm Life Growing up Ehrenreich moved around to many places she started in Montana then to Pensylvania, New York, Massachusetts, and ended up in Los Angelas. By the time she was a teenager her parents could afford for her to go to college. Ehrenriech attended Reed College in Oregon. She started off majoring in chemistry and a few years later decided to go into physics.She attended grad school at Rockfeller University. Her focus was theoretical physics but decided that she was not ready and decided to go into molecular biology and later cell biology. Ehreneich has been married and divorced twice. She has two children Rosa and Benjamin the first born was Rosa and she was born in 1970 and Benjamin was born in 1972. Both children have followed in their mothers footsteps and have become writers. Around the realease of her book "Nickel and Dimed" Ehrenreich was diagnosed with breast cancer. Now at the age of 71 she currently resides in Florida. Career After earing a PhD in cell biology. Ehreinreich became an activist. She does not think that she was suited for research because "I'm to impatient and, well sloppy" she says. Ehrenreich first joined a small nonprofit in New York City that worked to try and get better health care for the poor in the city. While in this nonprofit she found she was doing investigative stories and enjoyed it.At this point she did not have a plan to become a writer but she was doing it. Ehreinreich became a feminist when her daughter was born. She gave birth in a public clinic in New York where she was the only white patient there at the time. The doctors induced her labor because it was late in the evening and they wanted to go home. A few years later she made the decision to quit her co-teaching job at the State University of NY. Ehrenreich got her big break when she wrotea story for Ms. magazine about the myth that feminsim causes heart disease. The story became a cover story and she was asked to write more. The writings supplied Ehrenreich with some reliable income. Around 1998 Ehrenreich steadily went toward writing books instead of essay writing. She is also well known for her book review which have appeared in The New York TImes Book Review, The Washington Post and many others. Throughout Ehrenreiche's life she has been an advisor, board member or founder to many organizations including the U.S National Women's Health Network, Democratic Socialists of America,and others. In 2006, Ehrenreich founded an organization called United Professionals. The United Professionals are a non-profit organization that reaches out to all unemployed and underemployed. This organization helps men and women who have college degrees but they aren't really considered middle class. Writing Nickel and Dimed is a New York Times best seller. This book is about Ehrenreichs experiences in low paying jobs. Ehreneich who has a PhD in Cell biology went undercover and worked in very low paying jobs like being a waitress, hotel-maid, house cleaner, nursing home aide and wal-mart salesperson. She said that one job is not enough a person needs at least two if they want to live indoors. Ehrenreich got the idea for the book while having an espensive lunch with Lewis Lapham an editor of Harper's.Ehrenreich learned that she wouldn't understand how it truly feels to be impoverished because before doing the experiment she had some rules one rules that she would never go hungry another rule was that she would have a car. She says she was already better off than many others because she could speak English and already had a car. The goal of Ehrenreichs experiment was to see if her income could match her expenses. Another one of Ehrenreichs well known book is Balt and Switch. This book is about people who have done everything right. THese people have college degrees and have built up very impressive resumes but they still are prone to financial disasters. Ehrenreichs again goes undercover this time with a good looking resume and tries to land a middle-class job. References